The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released a “final rule that establishes disincentives for health care providers that have committed information blocking.”
These disincentives are being established for healthcare providers who engage in practices they know to be “unreasonable and are likely to interfere with, prevent, or materially discourage the access, exchange, or use of electronic health information (EHI), except as required by law or covered by a regulatory exception.”
One of the disincentives is that eligible hospitals or critical access hospitals who commit information blocking “will not be a meaningful electronic health record (EHR) user during the calendar year of the EHR reporting period in which OIG refers its determination to CMS. If the eligible hospital is not a meaningful EHR user, the eligible hospital will not be able to earn three quarters of the annual market basket increase they would have been able to earn for successful program participation.”
Another is that a MIPS eligible clinician who commits information blocking “will not be a meaningful EHR user during the calendar year of the performance period in which OIG refers its determination to CMS. If the MIPS eligible clinician is not a meaningful EHR user, then they will receive a zero score in the MIPS Promoting Interoperability performance category.”
A third disincentive is for healthcare providers that are Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) or a participant or provider for an ACO. Those that commit information blocking “may be ineligible to participate in the program for a period of at least one year. Consequently, the health care provider may not receive revenue that they might otherwise have earned through the Shared Savings Program.”
